PS 2520 







LIBRARY OF CONGRESS. 

Chap......... Copyright jno. 






% 




" And here again beneath our inland beeches." " Sea Dreams," 
page ioi. From a painting by Dr. E. E. Edwards. 



Rhymes of Our Neighborhood 



BENJAMIN SHARKER, 

Author of "The Cabin in the Clearing 
"Hoosier Bards," etc. 



" Though this but be an humble thing, 
To offer at the muse's shrine, 
Pro;) let your kindness give if grace 
That it may fill some vacant place 
Among the wreaths you twine.' 1 ' 1 

— Lee O. Harris. 



NEW CASTLE, IND. : 

W. H. Elliott, Publisher. 

1895. 




W (o^' ; 



OS^ 






Entered according to act of Congress, 
in the Office of the Librarian of Congress 
at Washington, by 

BENJAMIN S. PARKER. 
Dec, 1895. 



NEW CASTLE COURIER PRINT. 



To the surviving friends of my childhood and 
youth this little volume is affectionately dedicated 
by their debtor and friend, 

THE A UTHOR. 



PROEM. 

When last I said my au revoir, 
From old friends turning with a sigh, 

I thought, perchance, that time might change 
That au revoir into goodb-ye ; 

But now again, a spider gray, 

Without the sjyi clerks fell design, 
I spin, and, on the loom of song, 

Weave these bucolic lays of mine; 

And wind my wefts into a ball, 

Like Sysiphus to roll up hill; 
Content, when it rolls down again, 

If its descent purvey no ill. 

Little Boy Blue, across the fit Ids 
. I wind my horn to measures old, 
Or seek the rainbow's ravelled end 
To gather fancy's fading gold. 

I know where lie the hidden roots 
Of unborn blossoms, and I dream 

Dissolving dreams of deathless tilings, 
And follow, follow still u the gleam," 

The light whereof my toils are rain 

To fix in any woof of song; 
Yet who shall bid me hold my peace 

When crowding visions round me throng.' 



PROEM. 5 

Believe me, friends, how e'er it seem, 
The strife for art is worth its cost, 

And though, unsatisfied, we fall 
And are forgot, we are not lost; 

And all that has appealed to us, 

To woo us upward, is divine; 
" The gleam " shall (/row, the buds .shall blow 
And still their joy be your's and mine. 

The little things of home and love, 
The weeds that blossom by the path, 

The bluebirds singing on the rails 
Such joys as country childhood hath: 

To day let me be taught of these, 
Nor seek to fly on wanton wing 
Too far in those diviner skies 

Where mighty poets soar and sing! 

And, friends, be this our evening song 
Of hopes deferred and dangers shared: 

" Thank God! through all the toil and doubt, 
What e'er betide us, we have fared." 



INDEX TO POEMS. 

An Autumn Leaf, . . . . .78 

A Daily Creed, ..... 74 

After The Experiment, . '. . .109 

As Farmer Jones Tells It, . . . 40 

April Skies, . . . . . .21 

A Song of Years, .... 72 

At The Old Literary, . . . .55 

Baptized At Shiloh, .... 42 

Blaine, . . . . . .84 

Bull Pen, ...... 62 

D. M. J 89 

Dyaus-Pitar, ..... 81 

Good-bye to June, ..... 132 

In Arcady, ...... 94 

If I Were a Little Child, . . .111 

In Idlewild, ..... 46 

Just Here at Home, . . . .13 

Love and Nature, .... 86 

Little Brown Cripple, . . . .58 

Little Dodson, ..... 51 

Naming The Apple Seeds . . .60 

Old Friends, . . . . . 11 
Other Books, Adv., .... 136 



INDEX TO POEMS. 



Pleutoramia, .... 


105 


Put the Soul Into It, 


. 103 


Sea Dreams, .... 


100 


The Awakening, 


. 107 


The Army Coffee Pot . 


91 


The Ballad of Gypsy Daisy, 


. 23 


The Damascus Road, 


117 


The Dream Bud, 


. 69 


The End of the World, 


79 


The Farmer, .... 


. 129 


The First Blue Bird, . 


12 


The Fleece of Gold, 


. 98 


The Gracious Spinner, 


31 


The Haunts, .... 


. 64 


The Little Tunker Bonnet, . 


34 


The Milking Time, 


. 16 


The Old Rail Fence, . 


18 


The Passing of the Toll Gate 


. 26 


The Silent Hour, 


36 


The Vernal Elm, 


. 38 


The Winged Poet at Warsaw, 


76 


Washington and Lincoln, 


. 95 


Wild Roses, .... 


45 


Whited Sepulchres, 


. 99 



RHYMES OF OUR NEIGHBORHOOD. 



OLD FRIENDS. 11 



OLD FRIENDS. 

We are old friends, old friends, 

Still bound by the silken chain, 
And so shall be till the world ends 

And the links are snapped in twain; 
For never was world for you or me 

That our friendship did not share; 
And the never was, and the ne'er will lie, 

Have neither thought nor care. 

We are old friends, old friends, 

And many a happy day 
We've walked together where love blends 

With the laughter by the way; 
And now when the frosts are falling, 

And the air is thin and cold, 
There are voices crying, and calling 

11 Old friends are growing old." 

We are old friends, old friends. 

And, somehow, it seems to me 
That when the path to the grave ends, 

And the leaf from the sapless tree 
Falls off, by the rude winds shaken, 

And the clod melts into the clay. 
If we sleep or if we waken, 

We shall be old friends alway. 



12 THE FIRST BLUE BIRD. 



THE FIRST BLUE BIRD. 

Sweetheart! Our locks are thin and gray, 
Our eyes lack luster and men say 
"Their youth has vanished." Well-a-day, 
I hear a blue bird singing! 

The lambs go leaping down the lane, 
The sunlight flickers on the pane, 
The guineas clank a shriller strain; 
I hear a blue bird singing. 

T! e children's voices clearer ring. 
The elm buds swell, the grasses spring 
And maple drops are pattering; 
I hear a blue bird singing. 

Ah ! Love was never yet so cold, 
So dead and cold, so dumb and old, 
It leapt not to the warmth untold 

That thrills the blue bird's singing. 

They call us old, who years decry, 
The bird sings down the cruel lie, 
We're young forever, you and I ; 
I hear a blue bird singing. 



JUST HERE AT HOME. 13 



JUST HERE AT HOME. 

Just here at home I love to sit 
And watch the sparrows eyeing- me, 

Disparaging my sluggish wit, 

With wink and nod, and knowingly 
Hob-nobbing on the maple tree. 

Just here at home I find it joy 
To wander back along the years, 

A barefoot, freckled, eager boy, 
All eyes, or appetite, or ears, 
Or nerves and muscles, laughs or tears, 

And thread the woodland ways once more, 
Beside my father, as of old, 

And hear him telling o'er and o'er 
The tales by ancient genius told, 
The wonders of the age of gold ; 

The story of Athense's gods, 
Till far Olympian heights I see, 

And all the sacred forest nods, 
With Daphne in the laurel tree, 
To Jove's immortal progeny. 

Or hear him spouting here at home, 
A thousand things his thought renewed, 

From Tully, thund'ring in old Rome, 
To Shakespeare's golden amplitude, 
Or Burns in love's or laughter's mood. 



11 JEST HERE AT HOME. 



Ah! here at home I live again 
The past with him, the gently wise, 

And share his gladness, feel his pain. 
See art and nature through his eyes. 
And through them read the patient skies. 

Just here at home the insect's cry 
Calls vagrant fancy to her own. 

The lowly things that blossom nigh, 
The little joys that love has sown, 
Life's intimate, sweet undertone, 

Prevailing in the spronting grass. 
Or whispering in the blooming corn, 

The words of gentle friends that pass. 
The far, faint echoes of the horn, 
The rippling notes of laughter born. 

And here where fancy journeys far 
Through lands of legend, realms of song, 

Takes wing from star to happy star, 
And wanders gladly free, as long 
As dreams prevail, or visions throng, 

Within my garden's narrow round 

A hundred poets lightly meet, 
The wondrous, living strings resound, 

The hours stand still on waiting feet, 
The heavens bend down and earth "rows 
sweet. 

Right hero at home are cunning hands. 
That, love-directed, deftly braid 



JUST HERE AT HOME. 



15 



The passing hours to shining bands 
To bind my heart, that, unafraid, 
Welcomes the bonds that they have 
made. 

Just here at home I love to rest 

And watch the shadows eastward grow, 

As day goes gently down the west 
And softens to an amber glow. 
And dreams forever come and go. 



16 THE MILKING TIME. 



THE MILKING TIME. 

I. 

I never saw a picture and I never heard a song, 

That made the day so musical, the morning half 

so long, 
As a picture in my memory, a merry song I 

know, 
As I heard it on an evening when the sun was 

sinking low, 
And the shadows and the sunlight and the wide- 
eyed, waiting kine, 
And the pasture sloping greenly to the forest's 

ragged line, 
And a maiden at her milking and the sky that 

smiled above, 
Wrought a rural panorama in a paradise of love; 
While the streams of milk a-falling in a merry 

monotone, 
Singing, plainly, " Good it is not for a man to 

live alone," 
And a melody of morning mingled in a vesper 

rhyme 
That Sweet Dolly's voice was crooning at the 

happy milking time; 
Dear Dolly at her milking when our souls were 

all a-rhyme 



THE MILKING TIME. 17 



To the sweetness and completeness of the merry 

milking- time. 

II. 

From the fence along the woodland came the 

brown quail's evening call, 
And his "good night!" sang the robin as the 

dews began to fall, 
While from out the gloomy thicket, faintly 

falt'ring, o'er the hill, 
Came the lonely voice of sorrow in the cry of 

"•Whip poor Will!" 
But no voice of bird or insect could on melody 

prevail 
With two streams of milk a-falling through her 

brown hands in the pail ; 
With two streams of milk a-falling and the song 

she murmured low 
Of two happy lovers meeting at the sunset long- 
ago. 
O! I never saw a picture and I never heard a 

song 
That made the day so musical, the morning half 

so long, 
As that old picture painted on thought's tapestry 

of rhyme 
Of the merry country maiden at the dear old 

milking time; 
As that song the soul remembers and repeats in 

every clime. 
Of Sweet Dolly, love enchanted, at the happy 

milking time. 



L8 THE OLD RAIL FENCE. 



THE OLD RAIL FENCE. 

Through the slashes and over the hill, 

Smothered in briers and tangled in vines. 
The old fence wanders — a wayward will. 

That runs to ruin, but ne'er repines. 
There's a riot of elders above the rails, 

As it wriggles along in its errant way; 
While many a creeper its life assails, 

And shrub and sumach shut out the day. 

All 'round and all over the barrier old, 

The corners choking and pushing in 
To half-tilled acres, these pirates bold. 

These border savages dare and win; 
And, with these rowdies that push and climb, 

And crush each other — a motley throng — 
What minnesingers are these that rhyme 

All voices of wood and field in song? 

The chipmunk's chatter, the bluebird's call, 

The chee-wink's twitter, the robin's lay, 
And, blithely echoing over all, 

The improvisatore cat-bird's play 
At a game of authors, he only knows, 

As like the magazine man lie plies 
His weary quest for the best that flows 

From genius that measures the proper siae, 



THE OLD RAIL FENCE. 



lit 



Here mix and mingle with all perfume 

Of basswood honey and breath 'of rose, 
Odors of elder ad wild plum bloom. 

Musk that from muscadine overflows; 
Fragrance of violets, eerie hints 

Of spice and camphor and pink and haw, 
The mandrake's languor, the piquant mints, 

That startle and tingle along the draw. 
Here notes of the brown thrush oft surpass 

The spikenard aroma's persistent stress, 
With lingering fragrance of sassafras, 

To die in a rapture of tenderness. 
The great-eyed hare is the warden here, 

And the merry squirrel his frequent guest, 
But if weazel and hawk on the scene appear, 
Then tragedy enters this coigne of rest. 

This old fence-row is a state apart 

From all estates of the land or sea; 
Its wild abandon, its artless art, 

Its rude abundance, its poverty, 
Its teeming myriads of slugs and snails, 

Of ants and crickets and creeping things; 
Of blustering beetles in shining scales 

And grubs cocooned and awaiting wings; 

Of ashen lizard and gliding snake, 

The homely toads and the flashing skinks, 

The shivering owl that sleeps awake 

And winks whenever he thinks he thinks. 

()! myriad the factors of life and hope, 



20 THE OLD RAIL FENCE. 

And myriad myriads the forms that bide 
In the old fence-row with its widening- scope, 
Where love and the sylvan satyrs hide. 

Hie back to your buccaneer lair, raccoon! 

Sly reynard, these babies are not for you; 
This is a world that, alas! too soon, 

The besom of progress shall sweep from view; 
Leave peace in its borders the while you may, 

Your cunning and cruelty ill beseem 
This glad perennial holiday, 

This wilderness of the poet's dream. 

(rod bless forever the lazy man, 

Who loves his ease and his old fence-row, 
And lets briers scramble as best they can, 

And wild hemp blossom and poke weed grow! 
His day is passing, his end is nigh, 

His cabin totters into the dust, 
And, all unconscious of purpose high, 

He yields and passes because he must. 

Aye! call him a sluggard, a shiftless drone, 

A land encumbrance, for such he seems; 
Yet rotten and tumbled and overgrown, 

His fence surpasses your fondest dreams. 
And he permitteth this thing to be, 

This gladness yon reckon with idle crimes; 
And so I thank him for moth and bee 

And bird and poet ten thousand times. 

— 1898. 



APRIL SKIES. 21 



APRIL SKIES. 

Here's to April skies, my dear! 
Now a smile and now a tear, 
Wintry cloud and summer sun, 
Showers that cease when just begun, 
Wayward childhood of the year, 
Here's to April skies, my dear! 

Just before this April rain 
Love held but a tangled skein, 
Birds were silent, lawns were brown: 
Came the gladness pattering down; 
Song and verdure leaped amain, 
Love renewed his silken skein; 
One wee blossom rose to view, 
Which I pluck and bear to you. 

Lo! the blood-root's tender sheath 
Rising from dead leaves beneath, 
And the mandrake's baby hands 
Opening in the pasture lands, 
Welcome April as glad eyes 
Speak th' unuttered love's surprise, 
Newness welcoming the new; 
So my old love welcomes you. 
Here's to April skies, my dear! 
Storms and rainbows, gloom and cheer, 
Pouting gladness, laughing shades. 



22 APRIL SKIES. 



Fickle beaux and fielder maids, 
Here life's varied moods appear; 
April's heart holds all the year, 
Holds the human, the divine, 
And its holdings all are thine. 

Ah ! these miracles that make 
Change incessant, for life's sake, 
Change us as the April moods 
Frown or smile through western woods: 
Let them work, so love hold fast! 
Whimsey April cannot last; 
Sunshine broadens, clouds delay, 
Life and love are calling May. 

May's advance presages June; 
Hearts shall know th' exultant tune, 
And life's euphony and song- 
Through the summer days shall throng. 
All from April ranging clear 
Through love's plenilune, my dear. 



BALLAD OF GYPSY DAISY. 28 



THE BALLAD OF GYPSY DAISY. 

'Tis for poor old Gipsy Daisy 

They are hollowing out a tomb. 

Just because he grew so weary 

Of the old house and the "loom. 

And so longed for light and sunshine 

That he lightly left the room 

And went, bathed and lost in sunshine. 

Like a note of comic tune, 
Mingled with the minty fragrance 

Of a summer afternoon. 

Little, wrinkled Gipsy Daisy. 
He was bent and bowed and old, 
His body like a question mark 
Was crook'd, yet something told 
Of the rollic Punch and Judy 
Hid within his spirit's fold; 
And tin- quizzical suggestion 

Of his In-own and wizened face, 
Was the drollest hint of sorrow 

Held in laughter's loose embrace. 

O, it was almost pitiful 

To see the quaint surprise 

That mirth experienced when she looked 

Through his old, watery e\^>\ 

To note the comic attitude 



24 BALLAD OF GYPSY DAISY. 

Of his habitual guise, 

As though some wag of authorship 

Had tried the tragic role, 
And wrought a melancholy farce 

To fit a sunny soul. 

Poor little Gipsy Daisy! 

How the children used to call 

u Little Daisy, Gipsy Daisy, 

Will you never bloom at all?" 

How his face with smiles ran over, 

Like a paralytic's scrawl. 

And his soul went bubbling over 

With a love that flowered in fun, 
Till the happy children answered, 

"Daisy blossoms in the sun. 11 

Men have mocked at Gipsy Daisy's 
Twisted limbs and ugly face, 
But the children read him inward 
To the heart's abounding grace — 
Read his real self and laughing 
Nestled in his soul's embrace. 
Much they loved his fun and frolic. 

Praised his stories and his song, 
While his jokes, like sparks from anvils, 

Flashed through all the noisy throng. 

Long this laughing interjection, 
Dried and old and racked with pain. 
Lost to pleasure's punctuation, 
In this "'looniv house has lain. 



BALLAD OF GYPSY DAISY. 

Now life's quaint, unfinished sentence 
Waits his questioning in vain; 
Yet we see some hints of sunshine 

Lighting up his wrinkled face, 
Where death's solemn distribution 

Leaves him useless in the case. 

And the comic pathos lingers 
On his features, warped and drawn, 
Shade of Puck upon the curtain 
When the living Puck has gone, 
And the stage is dark and lonesome 
That his fancy frolicked on. 
Even the solemn undertaker 

Sees this tenderness, and smiles 
As he straightens and unkinks him 

For the churchyard's musty files. 

Hence it is for Gipsy Daisy 
They are hollowing out a tomb, 
Just because he grew so weary 
Of the old house and the gloom. 
Men will soon forget the fragrance 
Of his humor's slender bloom; 
But the children will remember, 

Through the mists of lapsing years. 
How this quaint old masker faded 

Down the border land of tears. 



26 PASSING OF THE TOLL GATE. 



THE PASSING OF THE TOLL GATE. 

[ Under a recently enacted law that authorizes the purchase of the toll roads 
by the several counties, the toll gate has just now become a thing of the past 
with us, and is rapidly disappearing in other parts of Indiana.] 

This world is but a world of change, 

As solemn poets wail. 
Old things give way to new and strange, 

Familiar blessings fail; 
And everybody, everywhere, 

And everything man knows 
Are changing like the raven hair 

That whitens with the snows. 

And e'en the toll-house old and gray 

Sits by the road no more, 
Nor doth the tollman bid us stay 

And hand our nickels o'er; 
The slanting sweep no more shall fall 

Between us and our own. 
And we shall miss the keeper's call, 

Nor heed his winning tone. 

And oh! we'll miss the joyous state. 

The triumph rich and rare, 
We felt when we had run the gate 

And made the tollman swear, 
And many a solemn saint shall sigh 

For joys that filled his soul 



PASSING OF THE TOLL GATE. 27 

When coining some Albino lie 
To beat the wicked toll. 

O ! Where are all the good men gone 

Who used to shun the gate, 
And strike the road some further on, 

And smile, with mien sedate, 
On the director whom they met, 

As if to soothe his care 
For tolls on which his heart was set? 

Wise echo answers, "Where?" 

And where is he, the guileless wight, 

On funerals all intent, 
And he who traveled late at night 

To save the nimble cent ? 
And that dear man who always came 

"On at the first cross-road 
Just back beyond the fields," the same 

Who hauled th' unlawful load? 

"The good die young," old Wordsworth said, 

And all the good are blest, 
And so, perchance, they all are dead 

And safely gone to rest. 
And those sweet, philanthropic souls 

Who put no gravel on, 
But growled and gobbled up the tolls. 

Where think you they have gone ? 

Are there no long, eternal roads 

With gravel worn away. 
And bumpy as the backs of toads. 



28 PAS SIN (J OF THE TOLL GATE. 

With chuck-holes in the clay? 
And bridges broken through to fright 

Their horses as they go, 
Where they may drive through endless night 

And think upon the woe 

They brought upon their fellow men 

When tolls came full and strong? 
For if there's no such road, why, then 

There's surely something wrong. 
There's change in everything we know 

In country, village, town, 
And oh! of change what rapid flow 

Has brought the toll-gates down? 

The drummer never more shall rest 

His team beside the door, 
To greet the toll-marm, in her best, 

And spin his stories o'er; 
And country lovers ne'er again 

Shall blush and giggle there, 
Nor shall audacious liverymen 

At the meek madam stare. 

No more the hurrying doctor '11 cry 

"On my return I'll pay. 
Since mercy speeds me as I fly," 

Then go back t'other way. 
The honest farmer's toil is o'er 

To pay his yearly toll 
By dumping lightly six or more 

Soft brickbats in a hole. 



PASSING OF THE TOLL GATE. 29 



The teamster, only, shall his pride 

And ancient presti ;e keep, 
His wagons spread the gravel wide 

And make the people weep, 
For he will "haul" when streams expand 

With sudden thaw or flood, 
Though every farmer in the land 

Demand his wicked blood. 

Dear toll-gate, let us sing to yon, 

In accents clear and high, 
Not au revoir, but sweetly true, 

The better words good-bye; 
For yon no more shall make ns grieve 

When we would gladly range 
The radial roads on summer's eve. 

Without exchange of change. 

()! highways built from corduroy 

And brush and mud and clay, 
Up "to smooth gravel roads, what joy 

Wheels over yon today ! 
When not a toll colle -tor's hand 

May swing the old sweep down, 
And every farm-wife in the land 

Can mount and ride to town. 

The taxes! But who is not taxed? 

A new tax is not new. 
We've tax and syntax and sins taxed 

And taxes overdue ; 



30 PASSING OF THE TOLL GATE. 

And wherefore should the rich man frown 

And at this levy bawl? 
This tax that brings the toll-gate down 

Is pole tax after all. 



THE GRACIOUS SPIN 'NE If. 31 



THE GRACIOUS SPINNER, 

0, patient lady of the spinning wheel! — 
The singing wheel that droned a happy tune, 

To whose glad measures throbbed the mordant 
steel 
That smote the virgin forest, all too soon ; 

Let those who may thy days of toil bewail, 
Thy flaxen skein and royal worth I hail. 

Toil-flushed and gladdened, all thy eager face 
Shone with a radiance such as men esteem 

The tender light of heaven's abiding grace, 
Pulsed outward from the soul as a clear stream 

Reflects the sunshine, in a rippled skein, 
That all near things may share its joy or gain. 

And swiftly as the fliers circled round, 
Still guiding fair each winding filament, 

And surely as the finished thread was wound 
Thy life spun onward to one sweet content, 

Nor didst thou pause to match, with drooping 
head. 
The chance of love against the chance of bread, 

Untaught of toil that love might not endure. 

Make glad and consecrate and fill with praise. 
And trusting him and holding him secure 

And steadfast ever through the fickle days 



82 THE GRACIOUS SPINNER. 

Of fruit or failure, aspiration, grief, 
Thy faith was blessing blest beyond belief. 

O, lady, wisely singing to thy wheel, 

What rush of centuries, crowded into years, 
Has borne us headlong down this age of steel 

Nor given us time for ancient joy or tears, 
Since love spun silk while maids were spinning 
thread, 
And hearts and hands, not rank and gold, were 
wed ! 

Wind, lady, wind about the distaff's head 
The flossy wonder from the hatchel's spears; 

Speed the swift wheel and let the spools be fed 
With threads that bind thee to the deathless 
years ! 

The parcae spinning for their webs of woe 
Were but distempered dreams of long ago ; 

But thou, fond guider of life's fragile strands, 
How better than Arachne didst thou spin, 

Toiling in faith with love's confiding hands 
To twine some never-fading luster in. 

Some kindly ray to hallow daily thought 
With every skein thy patient labor's wrought. 

What inspirations from thy life took wing- 
To fallow souls about thee — quick'ning seeds 
That sprouted into many a gracious thing 
And bore a varied fruit of noble deeds — 



THE GRACIOUS SPIN NEB. 33 

While yet the green walls round the clearing' 
stood, 
A leafy pageantry of friendly wood! 

O, winsome lady of the spinning- wheel, 
Proud pioneer of toil that bears no shame; 

Shall thy near offspring blush when men reveal 
Their mother's glory, giving it the name 

Of peasant service, hinting with dull scorn, 
Their low degree, as of the lowly born? 

Nay, peerless type of motherhood, that gave 
Thy heart's best treasures for the country's 
weal, 
And sent thy sons to battle for the slave, 
When war's wild tumult hushed thy busy 
wheel ; 
Thy title holds to honor's radiant line; 
The gentlest blood in all the land is thine. 

And sitting yet a queen beside thy wheel, 
Despite the snows of eighty wondrous years, 

What angels, born of love and toil, reveal 
Themselves before thee, celling up sweet tears ; 

Love, tears and memory; let the sun decline, 
So they but melt into the love divine. 



84 LITTLE TUNKER BONNET. 



THE LITTLE TUNKER BONNET. 

A maiden came driving a sleek black marc 

Into the town, into the town ; 
And the light wind lifted her raven hair 
In innocent ringlets falling down, 

Like the cadence of a sonnet, 
To the neck of her fleecy, lead-colored gown, 
From under the puckered, silken crown 
Of her little Tnnker bonnet. 

She'd a red-rose lip and an eye of brown, 

And dimples rare, and dimples rare; 
But the lassies laughed as she rode in town, 
For the graceful gown that she wore with care 

Had never a flounce upon it; 
And they made remarks on her rustic air, 
And wondered what country hulk would dare 
Make love to that "queer old bonnet." 

O, merry town girls, you do not know 

Acres are wide, acres are wide; 
And wheat and corn-fields lying a-row 
Are the Tunker's wealth and the Tunker's 
pride; 
And the farm and the houses on it ; 
The cow for milk, and the horse to ride 
Are gift and dower for the bonny bride 
That weareth the Tunker bonnet. 



LITTLE TUNKER BONNET. 85 

But the merchant beau at the dry-goods store 

Welcomed her in, welcomed her in ; 
And the sweet little face with smiles ran o'er 
As the cunning' purse of crocodile skin, 

With the clicking clasp upon it, 
She drew at each purchase, and from within 
Coaxed arguments that were there to win 
Sure grace for the Tunker bonnet. 

Then she mounted her buggy and drove away 
Through meadows sweet, through meadows 
sweet, 
Where her graybeard father raked the hay 
By the Tunker church where the turnpikes 
meet. 
The church with no steeple on it. 
Said the merchant, musing, "Her style is neat: 
I'll join the Tunkers, raise beard and wheat, 
And win that little bonnet." 

*We are indebted to The Century for permission to use "The Little 
Tunker Bonnet" in this volume. 



THE SILENT HOUR. 



THE SILENT HOUR. 

I, who rejoice in music's power, . 

And love all sounds of sweet accord, 
Have oft enjoyed the silent hour 

Of old-time waiting on the Lord. 

The throb of drums, the blare of horns, 
The myriad melodies that roll 

Along the hills on sweet June morns, 
Are light and gladness to my soul. 

I love the time of twinkling feet, 

That patter like the April shower; 
And yet, at times, 'tis very sweet 

To sit through worship's silent hour. 
Benignant hour, when each may rise 

Out of the daily noise and strife, 
And, all unknown to prying eyes. 

Reach out and up to larger life. 

Of quaint, old ways our parents knew, 
Returned to us as memory's dower, 

None dearer ever rise to view 
Than that old Quaker silent hour, 

When speech was all too coarse and cruch 
To voice the spirit's earnest quest; 

When none might on the soul intrude 
In its white robe of silence dressed. 



THE SILENT HOVE. 87 

In that sweet hour the soul could grow 
At one with nature, one with God, 

Nor fear the ill-directed Mow 
Of any fierce sectarian's rod; 

And through the silence faintly hear 
The measured pulse of angel wings, 

And know itself divinely near 
The perfect joy of heavenly things. 



38 THE VERNAL ELM. 



THE VERNAL ELM. 

The frog is calling from the brook, 

The blue bird from the tree, 
And, skirmishing each sunny nook, 

Low hums the awakened bee. 

Pale turkey peas uplift their stems 
Where last year's leaves were strown, 

And by the meadows' eastern hems 
Some violet buds are blown. 

And where, along the ponds and streams. 

The sturdy elm trees rise, 
A golden glory waves and gleams 

Beneath the op'ning skies. 

The frosts may fall, the ice may cling, 

The oak and ash delay; 
But when the robin heralds spring 

The elm tree's heart is gay: 

For well he knows the subtle thrills 
That prompt the tender shoot, 

And start the pregnant sap that fills 
And gladdens trunk and root. 

The elm a poet is in spring. 

Whose golden fancies throng 
In misty veils that toss and swing 

Likp melody in song. 



THE VERNAL ELM. 



39 



He feels the impulse first that wakes 

The heart of tree or vine 
To vernal ecstasy and makes 

The mating months divine. 
And from his lofty signal towers 

Its promises displays, 
Wrote in the alphabet of flowers 

On winter's fading grays. 



40 AS FARMER JONES TELLS IT. 



AS FARMER JONES TELLS IT. 

When I was a country lad a-plowing in the field, 
There was cupid slily watching- with his bow but 

half concealed ; 
The rain fell free, the grasses grew, the coin 

would never yield, 
And mad cupid me distracted at my plowing in 

the field. 

"When I was a sophomore and hoped to graduate, 

I gave a ball the craziest curve, I sculled a win- 
ning rate; 

But for calculus or foot ball I was always under 
weight, 

So I parted with the Greeks and did not grad- 
uate. 

I sought to be a wise M. D. and studied in a 

book, 
There was wild game in the forest, there were 

fishes in the brook, 
And Walton came a-smiling by with rod and 

reel and hook, 
And I stole out and followed him and lost the 

stupid book. 



AS FARMER JONES TELLS IT. 41 



But back upon the farm again a-plowing in the 

field, 
My Mary, holding o'er her eyes her dimpled 

hand, a-shield, 
She watched the corn a-growing and she praised 

the golden yield, 
And her truth it me rewarded for my plowing in 

the field. 



42 BAPTIZED AT SHILOH. 



BAPTIZED AT SHILOH. 

READ AT THE ANNUAL REUNION OF THE 36TH REGIMENT INDI- 
ANA VOLUNTEERS, INDIANAPOLIS, SEPTEMBER 6, 1S93. 

Now let us live the days that are no more ; 

No more, thank God ! nor ever more to be, 
When Freedom, stricken nigh to her heart's core, 

Cried out for succor in her agony, 
And you responded in your glorious youth : 

Live the days o'er and touch the heights sub- 
lime 
Whereon your hero spirits learned the truth 

Yon free flag speaks for all the coining time. 

The Tennessee ran red with Union blood 

And panic reigned along its slippery bank, 
Where, mad with fear, a motley, cowering brood 

Surged to the water, or in terror sank 
Down to the earth and wailed "the day is lost, 

All lost!" when rose the rallying cry 
Of Buell's men; the vanguard of the host, 

Some farmers' sons, with banners waving high, 

Pushed through the stream and struggled up the 
hill, 

And through the crowd of terror-stricken men; 
Dauntless as veterans in their hero will. 

Though all unused to carnage. Ne'er again 
Shall men do braver deeds than on that day, 

In their first battle, our young farmers wrought, 



BAPTIZED AT SHILOH. 43 

Leading- bluff Nelson's heroes in the fray 
And bearing back the Southern tide that caught 

And clung in vain to victory's frazzled hem 

As heroes cling when turns the battle's rout 
And bears them back and hovers over them 

Till all their hopes are crushed and beaten out. 
Then darkness fell and through the fearful night 

The helpless wounded wailed, and awful fires 
Went through the woods, and by the baleful light 

Men were seen writhing as on funeral pyres. 

So were you there baptized in blood and tears. 

And when you formed again at early dawn, 
Each man was older by unnumbered years 

Than on the day before, yet firmly on 
To death or victory you strode away. 

"Where's Grose, old Grose?" cried Nelson, rid- 
ing by, 
u Yonder he leads into the thickest fray!" 

A hundred voices echoed in reply. 

u He leads! He'll do!" the rough commander 
cried : 

And so the colonel led, the men strove on, 
As raged the battle till resistance died 

Into retreat and victory was won. 
Thus in its first baptismal storm of fire 

The gallant Thirty-Sixth achieved renown, 
Though many a son of many a peaceful sire 

In its first crimson flood of fame went down. 



44 BAPTIZED AT S JUL OH. 

And thus on many a well-fought battle field 

Its ranks were thinned, its hero record grew; 
Far shines its star — a light that will not yield, 

Fair as the stars in Freedom's field of blue. 
For peace hath honors for the manly men 

Who stood for Union through the war's wide ill, 
And, for the future, hist'ry's iron pen 

Shall write your well-won glory "glorious still.'' 

And your brave leader, young at eighty years, 

And earnest still for Freedom as of old, 
And, as in war, unstained by paltry fears 

His name is linked with yours by chains of gold ; 
And rank and file, as one, for aye shall stand 

Soldiers of Freedom, friends of law and peace : 
Heroes in strife, but swift to turn each hand 

When war was done to hasten love's increase. 



WILD BOSES. 45 



WILD ROSES. 

()! rose-*, wild roses, 
Your beauty discloses 

The joy of the morning 

In the month of wild roses. 

She gave me a rose 
With a hee at its heart, 

And the pain of his sting- 
It shall never depart. 

She sang- me :i song 
Of the glory of June, 

And my heart fled to her 
On its marvel of tune. 

And the rose and the song, 
And the hurt and the pain, 

In the ashes of life 

With the embers remain. 

Now roses, wild roses! 

Your beauty discloses 
The peaee of the evening 

In the month of wild roses. 



46 IN IDLE WILD. 



IN IDLEWILD. 

Cool shadows floating along the grass. 

Like tender sympathies in the air, 
Cloud ships, white sailed, that over-pass, 
Their graceful silhouettes gliding where 
The summer reigns and the roses blow, 
Or the loit'ring solidaries glow, 
Pure gold in the autumn's frosted hair. 

Lithe, lissome willows, low trailing down, 
Long, floating streamers of silv'ry spray, 
Where the robin, robed in his Quaker brown. 
Sings to the rising or setting day. 

As the birch's poem of classic whites 
And greens and graces the joy recites 
Of the singing season's insistent sway; 

And under the maples a lover's walk. 

Where blushes, glances and sighs dispense 
With the dull illusions of sober talk. 
And the irony of our common sense; 

Where voices falter as hearts grow loud, 
While sweet carnations are flushed and 
bowed, 
And joy bells ring on the lily stalk. 

Here echoes come from the busy town 
That hint of a world of toil and din, 
Of souls that conquer and souls that drown, 




A bit of " Idlewild," private park of L. A. Jennings, 
New Castle, Ind. 



IN IDLE WILD. 47 

Where all men struggle and few men win. 
They seem to flow from a far-off land, 
Like waves that beat on the shifting sand, 

And soften to song as the winds go down. 

And so we wander in Idlewild, 

And dream of dreams that were born of dreams, 
Of a world of innocence undeflled, 
Of the halcyon land of elysian streams; 
And here with the trees and birds and 

flowers, 
And comradeship of the happy hours, 
Our sonls are rested and reconciled. 



RHYMES OF YOUTH AND CHILDHOOD. 



Give me wealth and give me leisure, 

And I lie world to roam, 
1 will come and lake my pleasure 

At my dear old home. 

Dream of youth or joy of childhood, 

Just as loudly calls 
From its cabin in the wildwood 

As from marble halls. 



LITTLE DODSON. 51 



LITTLE DODSON. 

Little Dodson, he's a-coming, 

With his tricks and play, 
And the boys are all a-humming, 

11 Lucky is the day!" 
All the girls are stuck and pasty, 

Making cakes and pies, 
But they'll fix up neat and tasty 

For Dick Dodson's eyes. 
There'll be lots of fun and folly, 

As the elders say, 
Dodson drives off melancholy 

When he comes this way; 

Puts the youngsters through their paces, 

Without charge or fee, 
Teaches them the ways and graces 

Of society. 

Dodson sings, and Dodson dances 

Clog and pigeon-wing, 
Y' ought to see him when he prances 

Through the highland fling. 

Through the minuet's solemn motion 

He will grandly move, 
Scrape and bow with grave devotion 

Like a lord in love. 



52 LITTLE DODSON. 

Waltzes, polkas, reels, mazurkas, 

Dodson does them all ; 
And cotillions, it's a circus 

Just to hear him call. 

At charades with Quaker lassies 

Dodson heads the lists; 
At "old Miller's grab" surpasses 

Even the Methodists. 

Takes with Epworths and Endeav'rers, 

Same as with the rest ; 
Never joins and never severs, 

Just's a welcome guest. 

At the church fair or donation 

Dodson guides the swim. 
And it heats the whole creation 

How they dote on him, 

While he makes the comic verses 

And invents the fakes, 
That untie the stingy purses, 

Auctions off the cakes. 

If you're ill Dick Dodson's fingers 

Are with healing strong, 
As their touch upon you lingers 

Lovingly and long. 

Half the girls, dared they express it, 

Want him for a beau; 
Dodson never seems to guess it, 

He's so sly, you know. 



LITTLE DO I) SON. 53 

Always nice to girl that's pretty, 

Nice to freckles, too; 
Partial to black eyes, you bet he 

Is the same to blue. 

Old folks seem to most delight in 

Little Dodson's way; 
He's so kind and so polite in 

All he has to say ; 

Just takes to them, with them chatters 

Like an auctioneer; 
Politics, and all such matters, 

Making plain and clear. 

Wall flowers, too, vote Dodson splendid, 

He's so blythe and fair; 
Leaving ladies unattended, 

Dick says isn't square. 

Party now will party rival, 

Song and joy prevail, 
'Till they start up the revival 

Hot on Dodson's trail. 

Dodson learns each fellow's notion, 

And, first thing you know, 
Each young laddie's fair devotion 

Has him for a beau. 

When the lads are all in clover, 

Dodson's making hay; 
Seeing folks in bliss all over, 

That's Dick Dodson's pay: 



54 LITTLE BOD SOX. 

And he gets it heaped in measures, 

Full and double size ; 
What's this world to do for pleasures. 

When Biek Dodson dies? 

Hurrah! Little Dodson's coming 

With his quips and play; 
And the boys are all a-humming, 

u Lucky is the day!" 



AT THE OLD LITERARY. 55 



AT THE OLD LITERARY. 

My soul is away from home to-night, 

At the old school house in the dear old wood, 
And eyes are bright in the candle light, 

And the talk flows on in a rippling flood, 
Till the president gravely takes the chair 

And raps for order, the secretary 
Calls over the roll, with a timid air, 

To launch again the Literary. 

What wisdom the essays bring to view, 

How the paper sparkles with local fun, 
The declamations ring clear and true; 

The question box seems .to be overrun 
With queries on themes, from Adam to Brown, 

To puzzle the oldest antiquary; 
And the fierce discussion goes up and down 

The heights and depths of the Literary. 

Then comes the recess for pleasant talk, 

And naming the apple seeds by the stove; 
The late home-going — the dearest walk — 

With its nonsense, chatter and thoughts of 
love ; 
And all of the girls, with their beaux, are there, 

For this is the rule that must not vary: 
Whatever you do, whatever you wear, 

You must be prompt at the Literary. 



56 AT THE OLD LITERARY. 

Here rustic Marys, full six or more, 

The Lizzies and Hatties and Sallies all ; 
The hoys, who number a jolly score, 

Each quick to respond to the chairman's call. 
And eager, despite of wind or weather, 

For schemes that are wise or visionary, 
Smile on each other and strive together, 

And gladden life at the Literary. 

We talk so loud in the long debate, 

And I say so little worth being said, 
That some one whispers, "It's growing late, 

And there isn't another thought in your head!" 
Yet how shall I think but this single thought, 

Be it foolish, wise or illusionary: 
"Will all of my eloquence go for naught, 

And Dan win her at the Literary?" 

Away from home, I have been away, 

With the boys and girls I shall see no more, 
Till I shall waken some summer day, 

When the morning kisses the other shore, 
And the boys and girls that have long been dust, 

Lizzie and Hattie and each fair Mary, 
Shall come with the childish and happy trust 

We knew at the dear old Literary. 

A mist of sorrow obscures my sight, 
My blood courses taster, my pulses leap. 

For the boys and girls I met to-night 
Are gray old people, or lying asleep, 



AT THE OLD LITERARY. 57 

At rest in a slumber I soon shall share, 
When lights are out and the luminary 

Of love goeth down in the night's despair, 
On the last wreck of the Literary. 



58 LITTLE BROWN CRIPPLE. 



LITTLE BROWN CRIPPLE. 

Little brown cripple where is your staff, 

And where are you journeying to? 
And what is the joy that makes you laugh 
As you bob along with a hop and a half 
As little brown cripples do? 

"My staff it is thrown away, ha, ha! 

I've no need of a staff," quoth he; 
"I'm the happiest fellow that ever you saw. 
For I've run away from my mother-in-law 

And she's run away from me." 

Little brown cripple where is your coat. 

And where is your cap and vest ? 
For the wind is blowing a wintry note, 
And the grip, that clutches one by the throat. 

Likes little brown cripples best. 

"I am going south to the summer land. 

Where they dress in gossamer green, 
And the pink-eyed fairies at morning stand 
With kilt and bonnet and plaid in hand 
Which you slip on unseen." 

O, little brown cripple, be wise and ware, 

And return to thy home with speed, 
For the roads are rough and the hills are bare 
And the wayside people have never a care 
For a little brown cripple's need. 



LITTLE BROWX CRIPPLE. 59 

Then the little brown cripple laughed low and 
long, 

And, unfolding his brownie wings, 
He flew to the south with a warbled song. 
Such as we hear when the blossoms throng 

And the merry brown robin sings. 



60 NAMING THE APPLE SEEDS. 



NAMING THE APPLE SEEDS. 

AT PLAYTIME. 

Mary ate a winter apple 

With that awkward Jim; 
"One I love and two I love, 

u And three," she glanced at him; 
Jimmy, blushing like a red rose, 

Turned his head away, 
"Three," continued winsome Mary, 

Three I love, they say." 

Little lass, that named the apple, 

Let the secret out ; 
"Name is Jim!" the minxie shouted 

Solving- thus the doubt. 
But, if Mary heard or heeded, 

Nothing she denied, 
Counting out the seeds to Jamie 

Blushing at her side 

Then th' simpering big girls giggled 

As they stood apart ; 
"Four I," — and Jim almost fainted; 

"Love with all my heart." 
Thus went on that teasing Mary 

In her lightsome way, 
And her clapper beaux re-echoed 

"Five I cast away!" 



NAMING THE APPLE SEEDS. 61 

"Six, he loves!" "ha! ha! " they cackled, 
" Seven " — and will she dare 

Say she loves that awkward fellow 
With the sandy hair? 

"Seven she loves!" "but who?" cried one 
bean- 
Mary did not tarry; 

"Eight they both love," and the last seed 
Counted "twelve, they'll marry." 

Much the giggling girls were puzzled 

And the beaux perplext, 
While Jim wondered at his grammar 

What was coming next. 

******* 

Jamie! Jamie! what was coming? 

Now thou'rt old and gray, 
Yet sly Mary whispers softly 

"Three I love, they say." 



62 BULL PEN. 



BULL PEN. 

AT THE COUNTRY SCHOOL. 

We were six on the corners and eight in the pen, 

And were passing a very hot hall: 
The "bulls " were the wildest of wild cattle then, 

And the master the wildest of all; 
"Hit me, Johnnie!" cried he, as he slapped on 
his thigh, 

"Please to give me a soaker right there! " 
Then Jackie made motions and winked his off eye, 

And the master leaped into the air, 
Then bowed himself low to the ground witli a 
twist 

And bounded triumphantly back ; 
Then the ball hurtled forth from Jack's spasmic- 
al wrist, 

And you ought to have heard bis thigh crack! 

We were three on the corners and one in the pen, 

The least little runt of us all ; 
He was sandy and freckled and crooked, and 
when 

We were passing and warming the ball 
He looked half asleep and he stood very still 

And nothing we did seemed to know. 
One let the ball fly, as if meaning to kill, 

Then blushed and said "Gosh!" very low, 



BULL PEN. £3 

For the boy and his freckles had shrunk to a 
knot 
And the big- corner player was out. 
Twice more the ball sped. With the last luckless 
shot 
The "bull" left the pen with a shout. 



64 THE HAUNTS. 



THE HAUNTS. 

There are four or six haunts in the brown-gabled 
house 
With the windows that look to the south. 
And when you sleep there just the squeak of a 
mouse 
Will jump your heart into your mouth. 
It's a creaky old house, it's a tumble-down 
house ; 
It's a house that has four or six haunts 
That sometimes invite to a jolly carouse 
Their cousins and uncles and aunts. 

When the moon has gone down and the east wind 
is hig'h, 

And the weather is off for repairs, 
The guests play at football, the small boogers fly 

And the ghosts dance the fling on the stairs; 
It's creakity, banglety, rackety boom 

Till your hair into white bristles turns 
While the red eyes of spooks drill out holes in the 
gloom 

With a smell as of sulphur that burns. 

You must hold on the cover and keep your head 
close, 
For they'll play till the glimmer of dawn, 



THE HAUNTS. 65 

Then slip put through crannies that nobody 
knows, 
And as quick as a twinkle be gone; 
While the four or six haunts that belong to the 
bouse 
Will hide away under a stair, 
And if you spy one, he'll pretend he's a mouse 
That has just been out taking the air. 




The Little Tunker Bonnet. See poem, " The 
Little Tunker Bonnet," page 26. 



THE DREAM BUD, AND OTHER POEMS. 

"Such stuff' us dreams are made on." 

— Shakespeare. 



THE DREAM BUD. 69 



THE DREAM. BUD. 

When the dream bud breaks and the blossom 
blows, 
There's nobody tells you, for nobody knows, 
What the mad soul does, where the glad soul goes, 
When the dream bud breaks and the blossom 
blows. 

When the dream bud bursts and the red flower 
waves, 
Then the love born in heaven is the love that 
saves, 
In the wild rush of feeling and the gloom of 
graves, 
When the soul is on fire and the red flower 
waves. 

When the dream bud opes and the white flower 
blooms 
There are quaint marvels woven in the dream 
god's looms, 
From the soft sunlight sifted through the trailing 
plumes, 
Of the red-wanded willows when the white 
flower blooms. 

When the dream bud yields and the blue flower 
springs, 



70 THE DREAM BUD. 

Then truth is the homage that the false one 

brings, 
And love is the idyl that the seorner sings 
When faith is an anchor and the blue flower 

springs. 

When the dream bud blows and the mixed flower 
shows, 
How the sick soul tosses, how the mad world 
goes ; 
How the loud laughter lapses, how the hot tear 
flows 
Through the heights and the depths when the 
mixed flower shows! 

When the dream bud parts for the passion 
flower, 

There is woe in the trail of the flying hour, 
And a storm of sorrow is the midnight's dower * 

When the wild winds wail for the passion flower. 

When the dream bud spreads and the lilac springs. 
One maiden, only one, has the hidden wings, 

And the first lover loved is a king of kings, 
When the brown thrush warbles and the lilac 
springs. 

When the dream bud blooms in a cup of flame, 
Then the trumpet flower is the trump of fame, 
And the wide world trembles at the awesome 
name 



THE DREAM BUD. 71 

Of the dream-drunken sleeper with his cup of 
fame. 

When the dream bud dies and the blossoms fail, 
Then never does a bark on the dream sea sail, 

And no Knight ever rides for the holy grail 
When the toad-stools cluster and the dream 
buds fail. 

When the dream bud breaks and the blossom 
blows, 
There's nobody tells you, for nobody knows, 
What the mad soul does, where the glad soul goes, 
When the dream bud breaks and the blossom 
blows. 



72 A SONG OF YEARS. 



A SONG OF YEARS. 

My face is toward the setting sun 

In the fading light of day, 
For the day when I was twenty-one 

Is forty years away: 
Forty years of the rising sun 

And the fading light of day. 

It's little I've done and little I've won, 

And little the world will say 
When all my daily threads are spun. 

And the webs are swept away, 
As the housewife sweeps when night is done, 

The weft of the spider gray. 

This fills me most with the hurt of life — 
The hurt and its nameless pain — 

That Love himself is the lord of strife, 
And tears are the price of gain ; 

No life so sweet but it feeds on life, 
In all earth's wide domain. 

Song weaves itself of elder song, 
Hope feeds on the sheaves of death ; 

Joy springs from joy and wrong from wrong, 
And a lie from idle breath; 

But he who toileth and waiteth long, 
And heeds what the spirit saith. 



A SOXO OF YEARS. 73 

Shall smile to the smile of the setting sun 

In the calm of the parting day, 
Though little he's done and little he's won 

In the long, unequal fray, 

And the day when he was twenty-one 

Be sixty years away. 

Feb. 10, 1894. 



74 A DAILY CREED. 



A, DAILY CREED. 

I will not cherish any hate 

That bars my brother's sonl from me; 
For soon or late, through faith or fate, 

We shall be one in destiny. 

Heaven bends not down to him alone 
Who seeks it through a formal creed ; 

Love counts each seed of sweetness sown. 
And sets his seal on each good deed. 

Give me your hand! I give my heart. 
Come good, come ill, through peace or strife. 

To cherish still each gentle art 
That sweetens this, our daily life. 

If heaven be here, the heaven above 
Will wait until this heaven shall fail; 

If love be here, the larger love 
Will in this present love prevail. 

To life and love, to-day I sing; 

To love and life, the foes of death; 
To these^my off'rings I would bring, 

That hate part not our mortal breath. 

Belief may be an idle dream, 

But gentle thought and kindly deed 



A DAILY CREED. 75 



Are real as the morning's beam 
Whence life and warmth and hope proceed. 

Wherefore, O, friend! Let sonl touch soul, 
Come good, come ill, through peace or strife, 

To bind each gentle art's control, 
That sweetens this, our daily life. 



76 THE WIXOEI) POET AT WARSAW. 



THE WINGED POET AT WARSAW. 

At the annual convention of the Western Association of Writers in 
189:5, one of the sessions was held on the broad verandas of the hotel at 
Spring Fountain I'ark. During its progress a robin alighted on the 
branch of an oak tret almost in the midst of the company, and sang for 
some time with wonderful clearness and beauty. 

At sylvan Warsaw, there among - the trees, 
And looking out upon the dimpled lake, 

The lake that laughs with every laughing- breeze, 
When shade and sunshine alternating make 

A rythmic gladness, such as might attune 
The gloomiest spirit to the song of June, 

Were gathered poets, many an humble bard, 
Wise men and women, singers ever young, 

Some eager still to win the world's regard, 

Some dreaming o'er dead songs that ne'er were 
sung. 

Meanwhile a solemn wit kept droning o'er 
The funny things he thought the day before. 

As thus they sat, half eager, half asleep, 

A real poet with his art divine — 
An art that soars and fails not — came to keep 

These poets company. The heavenly nine 
Hovered about him as his voice arose 

As t'were the lone song in a waste of prose. 

He sang all hope and love and sympathy, 
He sang as in the musk of dewy morn, 



THE WINGED POET AT WARSAW. 77 

As if his soul in that wild melody 

Went out o'er lake and wood and bannered 
corn. 
And bore away and into every soul 

Some spiee from each, some message from the 
whole. 

And singing thus, he paused at times to note 
His song's effect upon the sapient crowd; 

But none applauded, so he plumed his throat 
And warbled yet more clearly, sweet and loud. 

A baby crowed, the wit declaimed his prose, 
A bard sniffed idly at a withered rose. 

And then my post, hurt to his heart's core, 
Looked sadly wise a moment, drooped a wing, 

Stood on one foot and viewed the poets o'er. 
"They sing," he said, "but hear not others 
sing, 

Each has an audience surer far than I; 
His dozes with him; hence for mine I fly." 

Then flew the robin into waiting woods, 

Where odorous morns shall waken to his 
strain, 

Where flower and tree and all the singing floods 
Shall rise and bless his love-inspired refrain; 

Where no frail bard that struts in mortal mold 
May come to scorn his lute of mellow gold. 



78 AN A UTUMN LEAF. 



AN AUTUMN LEAF. 
Dip't in the fountain of the sunshine, 

And fresh from the hath arisen, 
A scarlet leaf from a climbing vine 

Falls into an old man's prison, 
And his faint heart feels a sudden thrill, 

And a strange surprise of joy, 
For he thinks of the scarlet oaks on the hill, 

And himself a little boy. 

The leaf, with the sunshine in its heart, 

Down fluttering seems to say, 
"I am of thy better life a part, 

A part of thy fair, young day. 
I'm ripened in sun and rain and frost, 

And whatever is fair in me, 
I bring to thee from a day long lost 

For a day that is to be." 

Withered by storm and blight and pain, 

And weakness that men call sin, 
The life that shall never be whole again 

Is touched to the sweet within 
By a gentler pressure than that of grief, 

Or the thought of prison and hate, 
And the old man lifts to his lips the leaf, 

And whispers, '"Tis not too late." 



THD END OF THE WORLD. 79 



THE END OF THE WORLD. 

An old man, weary and bent and gray, 
Came striding the village through. 

The laughing children cried lt whither way? 1 ' 
And "where are you tramping to?" 

"I go to the end of the world, 11 said he, 
"To the end of the world I fare; 

And wherever the end of the world may be 
My haven of rest is there. 

" Out from the shadows of ancient night, 

Forth from the darkness hurled 
Into the light and through the light, 

And on to the end of the world. " 

"But the world is round, 11 quoth a little lass, 
"And your journey will be in vain. 11 

"Then answer me this, though many pass. 
Do any return again? 11 

And the light of his smile was slowly blent 
With the light of his snow-white hair, 

Till a ray of some pure, divine content 
Seemed writing its promise there. 

"O, fair and sweet is the land that lies 
Just out from the end of the world! 



80 THE END OF THE WOULD. 

Green fields forever and love-lit skies 
Like banners that float unfurled ! 

"You may scheme and struggle for power all 
day 
And dream of your gold all night; 

To the end of the world I will take my way. 
Nor turn to the left nor right. " 

So speaking, he waved them a parting hand 

And turned to his weary quest 
For the end of the world, and the after land, 

And the heaven of peace and rest. 

That evening a shepherd came over the hill 
To the brook where the alders bloom, 

And the twilight's perfumed drops distill 
'Mid shadows that cast no gloom. 

There found he the old man lying stark, 
With his long, white hair uncurled, 

"And here," he murmured, "through primal 
dark, 
He has reached the end of the world. " 



I) YA US-PITAS. Hi 



DYAUS-PITAR. 

Dyaus-Pitar was the chief deify of the early Indian Aryans, as also, 
mii/er different modification of /he name, of the Greeks, Romans 
ami oilier branches of the great Aryan family. He was worshipped as the 
heaven god, therefore the father of ymls ami men, ami the upholder of 
all things; his character being very similar to that ascribed by the Sem- 
itic tribes to Jehovah. 

Dyaus-Pitar, the father god, 

The soul of soul, the life of life, 
Sweet silence of the solitude, 

Fierce energy of war and strife ! 
To thee the struggling nations call, 

And, naming all thy many names, 
The myriads still in blindness fall 

Where, as of old, thy glory flames 
On any mountain's sacred height, 

On any vale's benign repose, 
Or kindles with the morning's light, 

Or paints the bow or tints the rose. 

Dyaus-Pitar, though life and death 

Are one to thee, as joy, despair; 
. And one to thee our mortal breath 

As any breath of common air; 
All is of thee, though art of all, 

Of every life the hidden string 
That trembles to the sparrow's fall, 

Or echoes when the thrushes sing. 



82 DYAUS-PITAR. 



World-making forces all are thine, 
And thou art future, present, past; 

The stars that glow, the suns that shine 
Are shadows from thy glory cast. 

With thee no thing is ever lost, 

And nothing ever loses thee; 
Whate'er may be the mortal cost, 

The gain hath immortality, 
And thine forever is the gain, 

The joy of peace, the wrath of war. 
The mountain melting to the plain, 

The lightning's flashing scimetar 
That cleaves the forest at a stroke, 

Are moods of thy mobility; 
Thou art Philemon in the oak 

And Baucis in the linden tree. 

More secret than the secret soul, 

More open than October's sky, 
Thy presence fills the least, the whole, 

The world below, the worlds on high ; 
For there is neither high nor low, 

Nor near nor far, nor time nor space 
To thee, men call Dyaus-Pitar, 

The ancient of the endless days; 
Creator and created thing, 

All evolutions are thy thought, 
One life, forever varying, 

One bud to many harvests wrought. 



DYAUS-PITAR. 83 

The lesser gods fade out of sight! 

"Great Pan is dead," and down the years, 
Slow dying from its ancient height, 

The Olympian glory disappears; 
But thou, the unknowable, the known, 

The tender friend, the awful god ; 
The heavens are bowed beneath thy throne, 

An insect bears thee on the sod ; 
Our greatest thoughts are as the flow 

Of thy swift fancy's lightest play, 
And things too small for us to know 

To thee are open as the day. 

Dyaus-Pitar, all speech is vain 

To weave one chaplet for thy brow ; 
All mortal thought or joy or pain, 

Dissolving in the here and now, 
For one strong attribute of thine, 

To reproduce it for our kind, 
Yearns, hopes and faints. In thy divine 

Selfhood our mortal selves confined, 
Draw near to thee as thou art near, 

And yet conceive thee as afar 
In some divinely ordered sphere, 

The father of gods, Dyaus-Pitar. 



84 BLAINE. 



BLAINE. 

January 27, 1893. 

With the gallant leader leading, 

And the banners floating fair! 
And the songs of freedom pulsing 

Their music on the air, 
Went the happy people shouting 

And crying in glad refrain, 
Down country lanes, on city streets, 

"Blaine! Blaine! Blaine!" 

Now walking in the shadow, 

Where flags at half-mast cling, 
And muffled bells in monotones 

Their saddest message bring, 
The people wail in accents low, 

A dirge of grief and pain, 
And still the burden of their tongues 

Is "Blaine! Blaine! Blaine!' 1 

Our "Blaine of Maine" forever 

Has passed from mortal ken; 
Our freedom's hero century 

Is tombing its mighty men; 
And yet the weary world drags on 

The oppressor's iron chain, 
And the land has need of the freeman's cry 

"Blaine! Blaine! Blaine!" 



BLAINE. 85 

What names to glory given ! 

What deeds outmeasuring time, 
Have crowded this flaming century 

And made its sun sublime ! 
The immortal proclamation 

And freedom's endless gain ; 
The names of Lincoln, Sumner, Grant, 

And "Blaine! Blaine! Blaine!" 

Never the tyrants old compelled 

Such guerdons for any age; 
Never a people was made so free, 

Despite the oppressor's rage; 
And the century wanes to its fading hour, 

But the nations know their gain, 
And freedom's children will long repeat 

" Blaine ! Blaine ! Blaine ! " 



86 LOVE AND NATURE. 



LOVE AND NATURE. 

" There is no love in Nature's law." 

— Sunday Sermon. 

No love in the breath of morning 

That cools the fevered blood? 
No love in the warm, glad sunshine 

That falls, like a healing flood, 
And wakes the heavy laden 

To the joy of bloom and song. 
When the spring laughs like a maiden 

And the days are fair and long? 

No love in the golden billows 

On the seas of ripening wheat? 
No love where death's cool pillows 

Give rest that is long and sweet, 
Nor where the summer's glory 

Writes over the narrow tomb 
Life's still triumphant story 

In a song of leaf and bloom ? 

Is this the best of your teaching, 
The result of your toil and prayer 

For the ultimate truth outreaching 
And the love that is everywhere? 

1 grant the rage of the ocean, 
The terrors of heat and cold, 



LOVE AND NATURE. 87 



The wrath of the clouds in motion, 
And the forces that mix and mold 

The rocks of the rended mountains 

To the soil of the fruitful vale; 
Or the rush from the earth's red fountains 

When fire and death prevail; 
And I know that the clear old mother 

Works ever the Master's will, 
If it burn or crush or smother 

Or move like an endless ill. 

Yet beyond the gloom and sorrow 

The wooing sunshine falls, 
And down through the smiling morrow 

The voice of blessing calls; 
And into the souls of the weepers 

A solace and promise pass, 
While over the dreamless sleepers 

There comes the delight of grass; 

And out of the brief disaster 

An endless joy is born, 
And the love of the loving Master 

Goes whispering through the corn. 
A thousand morns of gladness, 

A thousand days of gain! 
Shall we lose them in the mildness 

Of one short hour of pain? 

Leave dogma to those who plead it 
Since love is more than all, 



88 LOVE AND NATURE. 

And the heavenly powers that heed it 
Note even the sparrow's fall; 

And Nature in every motion 
Out-pulsing from her heart, 

Proelaimeth her sure devotion 
To love's divinest art. 



D. M. J. 89 



D. M. J. 

April 26th, 1895, 

If tears could speak the soul's deep thought, 
Or love proclaim it o'er her dust. 
Men might declare the thought too just, 

And thus appraise its worth at naught. 

But she who loved the true and good 

And all things beautiful and fair, 

In soul or star, in earth or air, 
At last, thank God! is understood. 

Where she has gone no shadows chill 

The life of any joyous thing; 

No discord sounds from any string, 

And love hath art's divinest skill. 

■ 
In toil, attainment, joy or woe, 

Her harp had one immortal note; 

One sweet song warbled from her throat, 

One gladness all the world should know. 

Its pathos wrought of hope and pain — 

A tenderness of deep desire, 

Warmed by the old Promethean fire 
To love and love's eternal gain — 

Bound friend and stranger by its spell, 
Its modest ultimate tit art, 



90 D. M. J. 

That came unstudied from her heart 
Like water sparkling from a well. 

She held her friends as one holds dreams 
Of some diviner life than ours, 
As others hold the saintly flowers 

That bloom by paradisal streams. 

Oh ! she loved much and well and long, 
And sang as well as some have sung, 
Whose names the world keeps ever young 

In fame's perennity of song. 

And now that death, with gentle hand, 
Has touched the friend beloved of all, 
And bade her sorrows lightly fall, 

And led her to the halcyon land, 

Shall not her harp to heaven's accord, 
Attuned by many joys and tears. 
Renew the glory of her years 

In the dear presence of love's Lord ? 



THE ARMY COFFEE POT. 91 



THE ARMY COFFEE POT. 

You may boast of the inspiration born 

Of a draught from the old canteen; 
Or the stolen sweets of the foraged corn, 

Or the wealth of the army bean; 
But the volunteer in his heart's desire 

Has ever a tenderer spot 
For the curling smoke of the old campfire 

And the steaming coffee pot. 

They bring back many a dream of home, 

Of mother and sister, and wife; 
Or the wife to be, and the home to come, 

And the promise and joy of life, 
With little ones clustering round the knee, 

In the citizen's happy cot, 
When the foe shall yield and the freeman's 
glee 

Be the song of the coffee pot. 

Oh! hearts grow warmest when gathered 
round 

Where coffee begins to steam, 
An'd the bundle of story and jest, unbound, 

Floats out on the wayward stream 
Of mem'ries clustering and dreams that rise 

With the pathos of joys forgot, 



92 THE ARMY COFFEE POT. 

That come like a breath of paradise 
From the army coffee pot. 

Wounds are uncounted and toils forgot, 

And danger an idle tale, 
When the fat pork toasts and the coffee pot 

Sends upward its savory "hail!" 
They drink, and each nerve, like a bow 
cord strung, 

Grows strong for the coming fray. 
When, the laugh cut short and the song 
unsung, 

The bugle calls "up! away!" 

Ah! many shall enter at battle's door. 

Few answer the roll's next call. 
When fires are kindled and sweet once more 

The aromas of coffee fall 
On the weary brain and the battered sense 

That mourn for the soldier's lot, 
But wait for the soldier's recompense 

Still cheered by the coffee pot. 

Oh! the coffee pot, the smoke-soiled pot, 

Has a treasure in every stain ; 
There are tears for the comrade that wnketh 
not, 
And smiles never smiled again; 
And its lid unhinged, like a brave man's 
lip, 
Seems a-quiver as love recalls 



THE ARMY COFFEE POT. 93 

Its story untold, till the amber drip 
Of its breath in the ashes falls. 

Oh, the bubbling joy of the rich, brown flood 

That flows from the dented spout! 
How it warms and thrills all the sluggish 
blood, 

And sends the red color out 
To the finger tips of the shivering crowd, 

Till flushed with the goodly cheer, 
The jest grows free and the laughter loud 

And the weakest forgets his fear. 

Oh! the old canteen has its tales to tell 

Of many a wounded boy 
Brought back to life by the water's spell; 

But courage and hope and joy 
And manly sorrow concenter round 

The camp-fire's ruddy gleam, 
When the pulses beat to the welcome sound 

Of the coffee's fragrant steam. 

Then, brave old coffee pot, pulse and beat 

The time of liberty's march 
Till the world is free and fair and sweet 

All round to the sky's blue arch; 
Till never a chain has a slave to bind, 

And plenty is each man's lot, 
And war is only a dream outlined 

In th' steam of the coffee pot. 



94 IN AECADY 



IN AECADY. 

In Arcady three lovers are, 

Who love three maids adoringly; 
And all the maidens, near or far, 

Rojoice with those sweet sisters three; 
And every youth would march to war 
To serve those lovers loyally. 
In Arcady, dear Arcady, 
There's no gangrene of jealousy 
In that fair land of Arcady. 

In Arcady three prelates dwell, 

With but one living for the three; 
Each vows the twain do him excel 

In worth and works, and ceaselessly 
Delights their worthy praise to swell 
Through happy-hearted Arcady, 
In Arcady, dear Arcady, 
Life bears no stain of infamy 
In that high land of Arcady. 

In Arcady three poets sing 

In rapturous rounds of melody: 
To each responds a living string, 

And each rejoices royally 
To hear his tuneful brethren sing, 
Nor yawns and sighs despairingly. 
From Arcady, dear Arcady, 
The selfish, sordid syndics flee 
And poets thrive in Arcady. 



WASHINGTON AND LINCOLN. 95 



WASHINGTON AND LINCOLN. 

On one sweet summer's day my friends and I, 

Friends from three States — one Freedom's cra- 
dle, two 
Born to the Union since its morning sky, 

Red with the sunrise, shrined the stars in blue — 
Sat under that old elm, whose knotted arms 

Once shadowed him, too great to wear a crown, 
Who came to lead the heroes from their farms 

And strike the flag of despotism down. 

Then backward through the century ran each 
thought. 
Until that august presence rose to view 
In his young manhood's glory, and we caught 

Those words of hope that ring the ages through ; 
Beheld him take command to do and dare 
For right and freedom, saw his strength in- 
crease, 
Through doubt, defeat, success and sleepless 
care, 
Till victory sheathed the conquering sword in 
peace. 

And — loftiest deed of all the deeds of men — 
Saw him refuse with joy the proffered crown; 

The chief turned private — saw him proudly then 
Lay at the people's feet his triumph down; 



96 WASHINGTON AND LINCOLN. 

Reviewed once more the great Republic's rise, 
Beneath the guidance of his skillful hand, 

And, marvel of his spirit's high emprise, 
Watched light and progress glorify the land. 

Thus, sitting under that old Cambridge tree, 

The magic wand of fancy wrought for us 
The wonder that has been and is to be 

Till freedom, over all victorious, 
And known of all men to remotest time, 

Shall trace the sky, till flaming like the sun, 
There shines for all, for every land and clime, 

One sainted name, the name of Washington. 

His last farewell still fortifies men's hearts, 

Its wisdom bright'ning through the passing 
years, 
While peace proclaims it through her conquering 
arts 

And war re-wrote it once in blood and tears. 
Then Lincoln rose, the savior of the land, 

The fetter-breaker, the commissioned one, 
Whose form on freedom's holy mount doth stand. 

Love-pictured, by the side of Washington. 

The builder and preserver, side by side, 
Shall glorify the rapt historian's page. 

For love of man themselves they both denied, 
And so shall live through every coming age. 

Prophets are they to all the tribes oppressed ; 
Their voices shall be heard, their story read 



WASHINGTON AND LINCOLN. 97 



Till freedom gathers all into her breast 
And earth's last tyrant lieth stript and dead. 

And thou, O flag of beauty, ever wave! 

And let the children hail thy clust'ring stars, 
And shout their gladness that the hunted slave 

Shall flee no more the shadow of thy bars; 
The people, for and by the people, rule, 

And may their reign extend in all the earth; 
And all the world be taught in wisdom's school 

That men, not kings, have rights divine by 
birth. 

So let the world have peace, and, being at peace, 

May all men honor those who fought, or fell 
To make a path for freedom, or increase 

Her smiling bound'ries, or by stress compel 
Her wayward children to lay down their arms 

And take the old flag, with its garnered stars, 
And swear that never more its radiant charms 

Shall trail in dust through fratricidal wars. 

No greater love than this has any man, 

That he die for his friends, the Savior said ; 
But what of those who stand in freedom's van 

And strive or die for all men ? Who has read 
The story of their glory ? Who has known 

How through the ages it shall flame and run? 
While fame immortal claimeth as her own, 

Lincoln the humble — courtly Washington. 



98 THE FLEECE OF GOLD. 



THE FLEECE OF GOLD. 

The sunlight dies and the moon is cold, 
The dew comes down, like a mist of tears; 

The play's well over and the tale's well told, 
But the heart's still trouhled and the soul still 
fears : 

We're growing gray and we're growing old, 
And what is the matter with the fleece of gold, 

It grows not with the years? 

To dwell in a cabin and to train a vine, 
To cherish a rose and to dream a dream, 

And count for wealth but that heart of thine 
Till fame should come with its morning gleam ; 

If the folly of a fool, it was half divine, 
Though tears fall, bitter as the dead sea brine, 

And nightmares chase the dream. 

We'll wait a little longer and dream a little 
more, 
The gold in the butter cups shall serve our 
need, 
Till a ship comes to harbor with a richer store 

Than ever was the prize of greed; 
Though fame has forgotten us and wealth 
passed o'er 
We'll board and go sailing to some happier 
shore 
With a cargo for every need. 



WHITED SEPULCHRES. 



WHITED SEPULCHRES. 

When faith is broken, love is dead, 
Then honor's mien and snowy head 
Stand forth, in fallen virtue's stead, 
As Whited sepulchres. 

What dead men's bones lie hid within, 
What weaknesses that rot in sin, 
What reeking foulness gathered in 
To whited sepulchres! 

And yet the cunning wild flowers bloom 
And breathe their piquant, sweet perfume, 
And gladden even the foulest gloom, 
By whited sepulchres. 

And leaves and wings and all sweet things 
Make haste to hide decay that brings 
Such foul corruption to life's springs 
From whited sepulchres. 

But let them stand or let them fall, 
All loveless, haughty heads recall 
Decay's tombed hideousness and all 
The gloom of sepulchres. 



KM) SEA DREAMS. 



SEA DREAMS. 

I, inland born, have clearly loved the ocean 
And dreamed of sheltered hays where great 
ships throng - , 
And the wild waves, the endless rhyme and 
motion 
Of their incessant song. 

And when the sea, a wonder-world enchanted, 
Lies full before me, vast and vague and lone, 

The old, strange love, that long my soul has 
haunted, 
Still holds me for its own, 

Till in myself I feel the resurrection 
Of some old sailor, cheery and storm-rent; 

The ancestral mood that holds me in subjection 
To its sea-born intent. 

Down Albemarle, on Pamlico's blue waters, 
By green Antilles, o'er the Carib seas, 

My far ancestors, with their dark-eyed daugh- 
ters, 
Traded and sailed at ease. 

But I, who scarce have touched th' extended 
finger «■ 

That Neptune yields the landsman, shrinking, 
coy, 



SEA DREAMS. 101 



Wherefore should their old sea-song in me lin- 
ger 
And fill my soul with joy? 

A wordless rhyme, an endless aspiration 
Far throbbing to the pulses of the sea, 

Life's triumph hymn, the solemn intonation 
Of death's great mystery; 

It wooes me ever to the old sea-longing 
Till, o'er the waves of golden harvest lands, 

I hear, on ships that cluster homeward throng- 
ing, 
The song love understands. 

And here again beneath our inland beeches 
I list the far-off breaker's sullen roar, 

And see the waves play down the silver reaches 
Of some indented shore; 

Or softly lisping on the sandy shallows 
Hear tides outgoing whisper to the reeds: 

Or wait while from the salty meadow fallows 
The creeping wave recedes: 

And, dreaming thus, the weary miles that sun- 
der 
These inland corn-fields from the sea's de- 
light 
Are over passed, till one low growl of thunder 
Whelms all in storm and night. 



102 SEA DEE AM S. 



Tis but the summer rain-shower's note of warn- 
ing, 
Yet all before me angry billows roar 
And great ships split, till in the gray of morn- 
ing 
The dead men come ashore. 



PUT THE SOUL INTO IT. 103 



PUT THE SOUL INTO IT. 

There is a chord of music 

In every human heart, 
That will respond to him whose touch 

Is tenderness in art. 

Your technique may be perfect, 

Your execution strong; 
But where there is no loving soul 

There is not any song. 

The river flowing seaward, 
The brook that shouts in glee, 

Are timed to some unerring pulse 
Of nature's melody. 

And through all life and motion — 
The bird, the corn, the rose — 

A thread of tender mother-thought 
In endless purpose flows. 

And ever thus, O, poet! 

All nature and all art 
Bid thee to vitalize thy song 

With life-blood from thy heart; 

Nor heed the purblind critic, 
Who scorneth joy or grief, 



104 PUT THE SOUL IX TO IT. 

And imprecates the line that breathes 
A single sweet belief. 

However coldly perfect 
A soulless song may flow, 

There is no second morn for it, 
No evening's after-glow; 

But fill one clear, wild echo 
With mingled joy and tears, 

And it shall call from height to height 
And shnj- a thousand years. 



PLE UR O TOM A EJA . 105 



PLEUROTOMARIA. 

A GEOLOGICAL DITTY. 

Within your stony shell enwhorled 

What secrets old are hidden 
Of that dim paleozoic world 

From which you came unbidden 
Long- ere the Ichthyosaur was born, 

Or huge Cetacians vapoi'ed, 
Or pterodactyls flew at morn 

Where Megatheriums capered ? 

Say, whence arose that legend told 

By Sea Nymphs unconjugal, 
How Cephalaspus, over bold, 

Stuck fast in Amnion's bugle, 
Which straight became her winding shell, 

Her home, her grave, her glory, 
A tragic romance that they tell 

In tomes of rock-bound story ? 

Say, gentle pleutoramic bard — 

You may have been a poet — 
Did you not find it somewhat hard 

Upon your lip to go it, 
And make your Gastropodian way 

Where shell fish swarmed and podaed; 
And never have a word to say 

Though often stung and goaded? 



lOfi PLE I T E O TOM A RIA . 

What tremors swelled the ancient seas, 

What billows roared and drifted, 
When folded high the Pyrinees 

Or Alps were upward lifted ? 
How roared about the continents, 

And granite hills primordian 
The wild procession of events, 

The forces metamorphian ? 

Nay, nay, you will not speak a word, 

Your lip was but a walker, 
And as your tongue was never heard, 

' Tis plain you are no talker. 
So nestle, in your shell enwhorled, 

Your fate no words can vary; 
A nun you are, dead to the world, 

Mori chere Pleurotomaria. 



THE A WAKENING. 107 



THE AWAKENING. 

Tout ce que dori en nous /mure wn jour son reveil. 

— Madam Davdet. 

They shall awaken that sleep: 

The grub from its silken cocoon, 
The seed from its scabbard; lint weep, 

Weep for the dead that are strewn 
Like brown Autumn leaves that had birth, 

Fair on the wind-shaken spray ; 
Dust with the dust of the earth. 

Ashes to ashes alway. 

They that are sleeping shall rise! 

Aye! but their dust shall be dust: 
One are the weak and the wise; 

One are the foul and the just: 
They have no silken cocoon ; 

They are not sown as the seed, 
The sweet resurrections of June 

Shall reach not their pitiful need. 

The chrysalis ne'er shall renew 

The moth that has burst from its scales: 
The moth saileth far in the blue 

And the shell is hid dust when it fails. 
The spirit of man never dies, 

Nor ever lies dumb in the tomb, 



103 THE AWAKENING. 

Or love writes its promise in lies 
And heaven's a dream bud in bloom. 

O, friend ! tis the living that rise. 

There is life in the silken cocoon; 
There is life in the seed where it lies, 

In buds that shall blossom in June; 

And life ever living gives light 
And gladness and joy to the face, 

Lives in man and is man; its might 
Yields not to the demon that slays. 



AFTER THE EXPERIMENT. 109 



AFTER THE EXPERIMENT. 

What, at most, are three score years? 

Much loitering, some endeavor, 
Neglected joys, abundant tears, 
Large promises for future years, 

Green fruits that ripen never. 

False dreams of undiscovered gain, 
That hold us from the winning; 
The rented roof, the hall in Spain, 
Love crowned upon his golden wain 
At poverty's beginning; 

Youth, honor, wisdom, glory, shame, 

The poet's estivation ; 
The struggle for an empty name, 
A grocer's apron, mocking fame, 

And humbled pride's vexation ; 

Of friends to trust, a scanty few, 
Of sunshine friends too many, 

And debts, unpaid and overdue, 

That multiply as polyps do, 
Of incomes, seldom any; 

The baby's glee, the urchin's grief, 

The school boy's exaltation ; 
The budding statesman's fond belief 



lit) AFTER THE EXPERIMENT. 

That his strong sense shall bring relief 
And be the land's salvation ; 

In dreams to float through marble halls 

To timbrel and hosanna; 
In fact, to feel what shame appals 
The fallen man when he recalls 

That slick skin of banana. 



IF I WERE A LITTLE CHILD. Ill 



IF I WERE A LITTLE CHILD TO-DAY. 

DECORATION POEM. 

If I were a little child to-day, 

And there were flowers for me to strew, 
Fair blossoms that cling to the trailing spray, 

And violets sweet with the morning dew, 
And lilacs, telling of love's first thrills, 

And roses, flushed with its hot, deep tides, 
White immortelles, whose promise fills 

The sad, dark void where life divides, 
The clay falls back to its kindred dust 

And the soul moves on to some higher trust; 

If I were the child of a hero sire, 

And the soldier lay where the wild birds nest, 
And the grass is thrilled to its greenest spire 

With the life that throbbed in his manly breast; 
So happy, so light my tread should be, 

So tenderly light my steps should fall, 
And the rose and the wreath so lovingly 

I would place for him at the bugle's call, 
I would strew for him and our heroes all 

At the sad, sweet note of the bugle's call; 

That never a dream of their joy should break, 
Nor a joy of their sleep be marred by me; 

And the tears that should fall for a soldier's sake 
Should be Light as a world without gravity; 



112 IF I WERE A LITTLE CHILI). 

Yet true as gravity's self is true — 
True to the thought for which they strove. 

Sung by the stars in the field of blue, 
Red in the stripes of a Nation's love; 

White as the light of freedom's sun, 
All wrought in the flag of "many in one." 

If I were a little child to-day, 

Too little to lisp but a single name, 
Save His (too sacred to lightly say), 

I would not speak, at command of fame, 
The title of any old conqueror king, 

Nor wise man, holding his self-hood high; 
But here with the breeze and the fluttering wing, 

The nestling's chirp and the insect's cry, 
I'd whisper and murmur the homely name 

Of some " man with the musket," unknown to 
fame. 

Some man from the ranks, no matter who, 

That hastened at stricken freedom's cry 
To cloud himself in the union blue, 

Nor counted the cost, but to do and die 
For freedom, for union, for hearth and home ; 

For the good that was and the good that is, 
And the far more excellent good to come. 

A hero of heroes, such thoughts were his; 
Such thoughts, such spirit, such hope sublime. 

Should blossom for aye on the stems of time. 

If I were a little child to-day, 
The child of a soldier, a soldier's child, 



IF I WERE A LITTLE CHILD. 113 



Or soldier's friend, and some man should say, 

Some narrow creature, by greed denied, 
Some ingrate demagogue, mammon-stained, 

That the age-bowed soldier, whose hand up- 
held 
The starry flag where the death shots rained, 

With his wounds and honors should be com- 
pelled 
A pensionless pauper to roam the land, 

I'd smite his false mouth with my little hand. 

If I were a little child to-day, 

And should hear the story of Lincoln's men, 
What they dared for us in the cruel fray, 

How they died that freedom might live again, 
My heart would leap and my soul rejoice 

That I was born of the self-same race 
That freedom wedded in love's free choice, 

Then builded her home in the wildwood place, 
And bore such children, such matchless men 

As the men we honor with speech and pen. 

If I were a little child to-day 

And knew his story, so sadly true, 
I should place the hand of the man in gray 

In the palm of the man who wore the blue, 
And whisper the twain this one sure thought: 

"Who wishes a friend must be a friend." 
This is the law that the prophets taught, 

"Hate deceiveth," but love shall bend 
The haughty head to the poor man's plea, 

And justice alone make a people free. 




After the Silent Meeting. See poem, " The Silent Hour," 
Page 36. 



THE DAMASCUS ROAD. 

The annual poem read, before Tin' Western Association of Writers, July 
9, 1895. 



THE DAMASCUS ROAD. 117 



THE DAMASCUS ROAD. 

Dreary and long was the Damascus road, 

And Saul's feet wearied for his heart was hot; 
And thought distressed him with its stinging goad 

' Till his fierce zeal, wherein love lingered not, 
Grew faint and tottering and his anxious mind, 

Reached outward, upward, anywhere from hate 
And all the evil things by hate designed, 

And stood, at length, by love's wide-open gate : 
Even while his heavy feet were pressing on, 

Even while his fiery zeal demanded speed 
And strove with doubt and cried to thought ''be- 
gone!" 

He could not choose but dwell on man's great 
need. 

u What was the secret of the Nazarine? 

Whence came his power to win the souls of 
men ? 
From sorrow, torture, from the last sad scene 

On Calvary's hill, why cometh he again 
To plead, through many voices sweet as song, 

Sweet as all song, more musical than praise, 
Voices whose echoes cling and linger long 

And multiply with multiplying days ? 
Is love so potent that, defying death, 

It runs in triumph through th' awakened world, 



118 THE DAMASCUS ROAD. 



While prisons and stripes and persecution's breath 
Are but as straws against its swift tide hurled. 

Shall just his simple "love the Lord thy God, 

Thy neighbor as thyself; be spotless, pure, 
And meek as humblest blossoms on the sod" 

More than all temples, statutes, rites endure? 
And "all men neighbors," did he not teach this? 

Had great Gamaliel spoken it I should pause 
And ponder it as hate's antithesis, 

And argue backward from effect to cause : 
Yet our traditions teach it not, and vain 

Were whole burnt offerings, interceding priest, 
And Israel doomed, should this wide tolerance 
reign 

And make least greatest and the greatest least." 

And querying thus, a sudden, insistent light 

Shone round about him and th' entreating voice, 
Mellow and musical and filled with might — 

The strength of love that bids the world "re- 
joice! " 
Cried, as from heaven, "why persecut'st thou 
me? " 

And Mindless fell upon him and the load 
Of ancient error crushed him cruelly, 

And he lay prostrate on Damascus road, 
'Till strength came to him for the greater quest 

That lay before him, the diviner deed, 
The seeking that should make truth manifest 

And conquer hate and bend the rigid creed. 



THE DAMASCUS ROAD. 119 

We modern men, untaught of that far time 

Save by the letters on th' illumined page, 
Love's long traditions and the poet's rhyme, 

Still handed clown from listening age to age, 
Catch but faint gleams from that Damascus road, 

The conflict raging in the soul of Paul, 
The light that broke about him and o'erflowed 

His stubborn passion, trembling to its fall; 
And know but this that thought defied him there 

Till the light came and he was stricken blind 
To all his past false reasoning, and his prayer 

For truth was heard and he to it resigned. 

And so with every birth of kingly thought 

To bless mankind there comes the fateful day 
When some old error fadeth into naught 

And a light falls about the thinker's, way, 
And a voice calls tjO him, a voice supreme, 

Winsome and wooing, as the voice that sung 
When first Apollo, with his morning beam, 

Waked Memnon's Statue, and the world was 
young. 
The light may blind, the heavenly voice appall, 

Yet he shall rise to some sincerer quest 
For truth that is the end and sum of all — 

All aspiration, hope, endeavor, rest. 

He only conquers who has felt the light 
Fall on the hidden places of his soul 

And there reveal the eri'or to his sight, 
And usher in the truth that it may roll 



120 THE DAMASCUS ROAD. 

Tradition's stone from reason's living- tomb 

And bid the prisoned lord arise and shake 
His grave clothes from him, with the must and 
gloom 
Of his long burial; and go forth to make 
The desert blossom and the savage place 
Yield fruit and grain where once its tigers 
fought, 
And man uplift to heaven a radiant face 
Whose smiles are kindled at the torch of 
thought. 

All wisdom, all philosophy, all song; 

The arts that mold, the sciences that bind 
The elements for man's behoof; the strong. 

Fierce rage for freedom in the common mind; 
The sense of kinship linking man to man 

And men to God, each in its trembling dawn 
Has sent its ray into some throbbing brain, 

Some eager spirit pressing madly on 
Its hot Damascus road in quest of gain 

For self, for kirk, king, family or race; 
For love, for hero, even, at times, for truth ; 

And, growing there, through each Auroral "race, 
Approached the joy of morn's perennial youth. 

What if the light be but the fire-fly's spark, 
Th' appealing voice the insects treble lay, 

If they but open through the solemn dark 
The joy and hope of some impending day? 

Or it' it be the freed volcano flame 



THE DAMASCUS ROAD. 12] 



That writes its splendor on the troubled sea; 
Or if the earthquake's awful voice proclaim 

The word that wakes to thought's high destiny 
The soul iu bonds, and bids it break its chains. 

Or strikes one blind on his Damascus quest? 
Whate'er that quest may be, the light remains 

A dawn of day to make truth manifest. 

And light and voice are still the call divine 

To rise from passion, from the brutish clod, 
Ev'n through dark nights whose dead stars never 
shine, 

Atom to angel, angel up to God. 
Wherefore, () man! whenever thou slialt feel 

The light's sure challenge on thy spirit's shield. 
Pause and consider, lest the bigot's zeal 

Shall spur thee forward to some stricken field, 
Wherefrom thy slain shall rise with mighty 
brawn, 

Armed with the tears and blood thy iron hand 
Has caused to flow; in truth's ascending dawn 

To chase thee, as a craven, through the land. 

I hold that every flower and plant and tree, 
That every ray that smiles on sea or land ; 

All color, gladness, all the things that be, 
In life or death, are sentinels that stand. 

Each with its challenge to th' awakened soul, 
Tts light that startles, its entreating voice, 

Whose lesson, heeded, hath the power to roll 



122 THE DAMASCUS ROAD. 

Some hind'ring stone and bid th' entombed re- 
joice. 
To him, whose thought interprets well the call 

The voice is wisdom's, crying incessantly 
" Learn for thyself, investigate nor fall 

At theory's shrine on weak, submissive knee. 11 

Strong champion thou of ancient right or wrong, 

With sword or pen, in many a valiant fight, 
With dripping blade, with eloquence or song, 

Thou hast, perchance, put many a host to flight; 
And yet a ray reflected from a tear, 

A voice from childhood on the lap of woe, 
Thy eye may see, thy dullest hearing hear, 

May strike thee blind, as with a sudden blow, 
To all the conquests of thy mighty past 

That were not love's ; and grief may cry to thee 
In the long wail of many a midnight blast, 

"Wherefore hast thou so persecuted me?" 

To mad ambition seeking wealth and power, 

Or risking all things for the bauble, fame, 
There waits, somewhere, th' inevitable hour 

With warning voice and heraldry of flame — 
The flame that blinds, the voice that will not die— 

The race-awakening energy of thought — 
Thought that makes cowards and makes the val- 
iant fly, 

And oft has heroes out of cravens wrought: 
One cry at midnight, one great light and then 

The individual blind man counts no more 



1 HE DAMASCUS BO AD. 123 

In the world's struggle, save that his'ry's pen 
Records his failure when the night is o'er. 

Who dares to open wide the spirit's eye 

And look on man when reason's search-light 
falls 
Upon the crowding millions as they lie 

Locked in their miseries as beasts in stalls; 
By superstitions, ignorance, weakness bound, 

And maimed and crippled through unnumbered 
years 
Of false heredity, together wound 

In coils of sin ; unwashed except by tears, 
Then turn to heaven an unoffended gaze, 

And hear the cry go forth o'er land and sea, 
u Ye wise and mighty, in your splendid days, 

Wherefore, through these, yet persecute you 
me ? " 

"Is love so simple, kindness bowed so low 

In modest mien, you recognize them not?" 
The individual soul must hear and know, 

The individual life be unforgot, 
As God forgets not: Men may never climb 

Up any Jacob's ladder to truth and light 
' Till faith and wisdom from the heights sublime 

Come down, as servants toiling in the night, 
To do the little things that waken thought, 

Nor rush at once to the strong god's abode: 
The unselfish toils ambition reckons naught 

Dig flowing wells by many a desert road. 



124 THE DAMASCUS ROAD. 



And, thou, dreamer! cherishing thy plan 

Whereby some faith, some rite, some sacrifice 
That is not born of love for man as man, 

Some institution over-learned and nice, 
Some government by seraphs or by men, 

With all of wisdom, sweetness, light endued. 
Shall win us back the Astrean age again. 

Do all for all men and make all men good; 
Though Iris kiss thy bubble yet it shall be 

No less a bubble and as a bubble fail. 
For this truth runs through high and low degree, 

Each o'er himself must for himself prevail. 

The help that comes with blessing, the divine 

In man uplifting, is the help that frees 
The soul from savage bonds and wakes, in fine. 

The one strong note from all life's varied keys — 
The individual note, the note that thrills 

Through all our human kinship and makes kind 
And gentle and tender even while it fills 

With dauntless courage the quick, awakened 
mind. 
Exalt the units and the tens will rise; 

When all the tens have risen all men shall 
move 
To one sure purpose, to one high emprise. 

The good of each, the autonomy of love. 

Each thinker travels his Damascus road 
And hears the voice and meets the blinding 
light 



THE DAMASCUS ROAD. L25 

And feels and trembles under his great load 

Of doubt and error, through the shadowy night. 
But who translates aright the pleading voice, 

Who sees the light's unfolding- miracle 
In all its beauty? Whose is wisdom's choice 

That faileth not, hut orders all things well? 
"Not one,' 1 you cry, so he it then, not one, 

But each gains something, each perceives a part 
Of the all-truth, the light from wisdom's sun 

To hless all life, make glad the common heart. 



THE FARMER. 

A POEM READ AT THE WORLD'S FAIR AUXILIARY CONGRESS OF FARM 
LIFE AND HOME CULTURE, CHICAGO, 1893. 

O, the Fanner! 

Sing the Farmer ! 

Sing the Leader, 

1/ir world feeder, 
With his straight and shining furrows 
Cut across the fragrant meadows ; 
With his lards and golden harvests, 
Feeding widely alien peoples ! 



THE FARMER. 129 



THE FARMER. 

The Food-compeller is the first of all: 

He sows to hope, reaps opportunity. 
And bears his sheaves, that blossom as they fall 

Into the fragrance of the fruit to be, 
To man the savage; and the savage turns 

His beastly features upward to the light, 
And lo! within his bosom dimly burns 

The fire Promethean that shall conquer night. 

From his brown furrows waiting empire springs, 

And genius plods unhonored till his hand 
Unbars the future, and unbinds his wings 

For nights he knows not of. His toils command 
All flags, all commerce: peace asserts his power; 

Grim war devours its vitals when he fails, 
And stormy conquerors bide th' auspicious hour 

When far and wide the farmer's skill prevails. 

Kings are not kings until he bids them be, 

And man's republic, an undreamed of dream. 
Lies in some cell of plasmic energy 

Until his plowshare, touched by morning's 
beam, 
With light and gladness fecundates the earth 

And gives to hope and love and art's emprise 
Their fragile nascence, their expanding worth — 

The fruit of time, the ripeness of the skies. 



130 THE FARMER. 

Laugh at his plowman's gait and sun-browned 

skin, 

If laugh you must, but he laughs best of all: 
In debt to him all ranks and states are kin: 

Let him but totter and your kingdoms fall; 
Palsy his arm, and all the vibrant strings 

Of thought and purpose into discord break, 
And art and song, distraught, on pulseless wings 

Lie groveling where he bade them first awake. 

To dwell with Nature in her many moods, 

To plow her fields, direct her grazing herds; 
To garner wealth from all her vernal woods, 

Know the sweet comradeship of flowers and 
birds ; 
Feel out the secret that uplifts the grass, 

Or tints the lily, or adorns the rose, 
Or, through the ripening seasons as they pass, 

Behold how toil to golden largess grows: 

These are the farmer's rights, his joys, that make 

All joy of art subsidiary bliss. 
The brook that ripples through the tangled brake, 

The corn that blossoms to the Summer's kiss, 
The bourgeoned bough, the nectar-ladened fruit, 

The Autumn's glory and the Winter's rest, 
Are Heaven's own bounties to his rare pursuit, 

Purveyors of peace that wait on his behest. 

There is no learning that has grown too great, 
No art too perfect and no thought too wise 



THE FARMER. 131 

To find employment, empire, home, estate, 
And honor's court and love's diviner prize 

In the swart farmer's life amid the fields, 
Where, Cincinnatus-like, he guides the plow, 

And knows the largest strength that Nature yields 
To fortify the heart and crown the brow. 

Deem no profession, calling, art or trade 

Higher than his that is the first of all! 
Let science delve for him, let truth invade 

The realms of error, superstitions fall 
Before the light that gladdens his domain! 

Let fortune reach her jeweled hand to him, 
Fame on her temple set his harvest wain 

And honor fill his beaker to the brim ! 

Wherefore, O Winner of the Golden Fleece! 

Brown Argonaut who takes from earth her 
dower 
Of youth and strength and beauty and increase 

Of manifold sweet harvests, hour by hour; 
Bearer of life to the expectant world, 

Lift up thy head ! the future waits for thee ; 
On Thought's Olympus are thy flags unfurled 

And on thy steps wait law and destiny. 



182 GOODBYE TO JUNE. 



GOODBYE TO JUNE. 

Goodbye, dear June, I've clone thee wrong 

I've toiled all day, from dawn to dusk, 
Nor scarcely heard the robin's song, 

Nor paused to breathe the rose's musk ; 
But, now and then, my eyes have seen 

A gleam of gold, pure gold, refined, 
As flashing through the maples green 

The oriole tilted on the wind. 

And near my door ;i wee, brown wren 

Has smiii' so clear above his nest, 
I could but note this truth again. 

The humble song is ever best; 
Or when the pattering rain came down 

Witli summer gladness in its voice, 
['ve bad tin 1 grace, despite care's frown. 

To sit in silence and rejoice. 

Ah me! the June of love and song 

That shouts and pulses like the sea, 
When every day is fair and long, 

Each night an odorous melody. 
And every star an amorous sun, 

And Cupid reigns on sea and shore, 
Though joy be still a maid unwon, 

And wisdom haunt the earth no more. 



GOODBYE TO JUNE. 133 

Such June I used to know, such June 

When selfhood's self was meek and sweet, 
And all was gladness wrought in tune. 

For flying cloud and twinkling feet; 
When idleness was wild pursuit 

Of some fair phantom of delight, 
And each frail blossom pledged a fruit 

To serve, yet heighten appetite. 

Such June, with swallows on the wing, 

Down-skimming to the golden grain, 
With clustered elders gathering 

'Neath white umbrellas, where in vain 
The mother cat bird hides her young 

The while in yonder hazel bower, 
Her mate re-sings all birds have sung 

Since music's first creative hour. 

Such June, when butterfly and moth 
Are rivals for the red flower's heart, 
And humming bird and bee are loath 

To yield the prize to either's art; 
When meadow lark on golden breast 

Displays the trade mark of his guild, 
And Mrs. Bob White's humble nest 

Is with its score of white eggs filled. 

When sheep and kine at night forsake 
The pasture for the highway's dust, 

And munch and chew and dream and wake. 
And spoil the lover's hope and trust, 



134 GOODBYE TO JUNE. 

And make him swear, or wish to swear — 
Were she but deaf, that wheels must pause 

And spells be broke, perhaps to ne'er 
Be mended, by such brutish cause. 

Such June, when down the country lane 

Boys chase the beetle's drunken flight, 
While raincrows loudly croak for rain 

As slowly fades the evening light: 
Such June as this I used to know, 

When on the old morello tree, 
The plump, red cherries, hanging low, 

Were sweet as fruits of Arcady. 

O, June, sweet pythoness of dreams! 

Dear prophetess of love and song! 
I have mistreated thee ; there gleams 

On thy pale cheek the sign of wrong 
That thou has suffered, one faint blush 

That gives me sorrow and regret 
To last into the August hush 

And heighten July's harvest fret. 

I own my cold neglect of thee; 

Uprooting tares, I did not prize . 
Thy largess, spread from sea to sea, 

From Carib Isles to Arctic skies: 
O, dull and deaf my ears have been; 

How have I failed to see and reap! 
So blind-fold I have wrought, nor seen 

That joy went by, and I asleep. 



GOODBYE TO JUNE. 135 

And thou art gone, dear June, and left 

Me but the memory of a wrong, 
A hectic thought; a bard bereft, 

I stir the ashes of old song, 
But fail to wake a living strain 

That breathes again the tender tune 
That held my youth in raptured pain 

A prisoner to the soul of June. 



OTHER BOOKS BY J/7?. PARKER. 

The Cabin in the Clearing, 812 pages, 
price reduced. 

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By mail, . . . . . 1.10 

Hoosiee Bauds. 

In Fine Cloth, two colors, . . $1.00 

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The editions of The Cabin in the Clearing and 
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New Castle, End. 

Or at the Book Stores. 




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